


As I Lay Dying

by BlueKiwi



Series: Murder on the Hogwarts Express [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Crossover, Gen, Harry Potter AU, Marauders' Era, Potterlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:39:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8716030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueKiwi/pseuds/BlueKiwi
Summary: "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades." Irene Adler visits an old rival in Azkaban.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written by Jo.

Irene Adler hated Azkaban.

The wizarding prison represented, to her, failure of the absolute kind; a kind of black despair leaked from the prison and it was only spoken of in hushed, oft-forbidden conversation. For someone who treated whispered lies as currency and whose bonds of relationships were built on blackmail and gossip, Azkaban was the shadowy place that hovered like a phantom in the back of her mind. It was a reminder that for every secret she dealt with and every person she betrayed and extorted, one small and foolish mistake on her part could exile her to the dungeons of a nightmare.

The world had changed so much in barely a few years, and Irene was clever enough to spot the discrepancies in many official stories that peppered conversations since that one Halloween night. Alibis were created out of thin air, events were changed to exonerate high-ranking Ministry officials, allegiances were discarded as soon as they became inconvenient. Ever since the defeat of Voldemort by an infant who had long since gone missing and the subsequent dismantling of the Death Eaters, even certain people did not come up into polite conversation and besides, it wasn’t a subject many liked to bring up anyway. Azkaban was full of secrets, steeped in blood and darkness and nightmares.

For the first time in eight years, Irene wanted to visit one of the prison’s many mysteries.

The witch who fashioned herself as the Woman pursed her lips as the jailer led her through a maze of cells, ignoring the chill that tried to seep into her bones. She had used her tried-and-true form of currency to secure a visit with one of Azkaban’s most notorious criminals, but that did not mean she enjoyed being in the presence of the silent wraith that escorted her into the bowels of the prison. Even when the Dementors’ attention was somewhere else entirely, a person could never quite shake the icy feeling of despair that surrounded them as completely as a cloak.

They stopped in front of a cell that seemed no different than the others they’d already passed. Irene had ignored the whimpers and incoherent mutterings and desperate screams coming from beyond the other cells she had passed, refusing to be unnerved by the misery and madness that choked the life out of the air. She was a witch who had seen much worse during the Wizarding War – human anguish of that sort would not rattle her.

She looked in the darkness of the cell, seeing nothing but shadows against shadows. Even during the long descent, her eyes hadn’t gotten used to the absolute darkness that permeated Azkaban’s walls. She didn’t lean forward against the cold bars and instead clasped her hands within the warm sleeves of her coat.

“I’m sure you haven’t quite forgotten your manners, Mr. Black,” she says, threading a tone of amused disgust into her voice. “Or have you received so few visitors that you no longer recall even the simplest pleasantries?”

There was no sharp reply and still no movement within the cell. Irene narrowed her eyes. She should have assumed that the man Sirius Black had become would not rise to the same bait that the boy Sirius would have.

“Would you like to hear how life has gone on beyond these prison walls? Certainly the Dementors can’t make for intriguing conversationalists and, of course, so much has changed in eight years.”

Still nothing.

Irene prided herself on her patience – she had wound her way through both the wizarding and Muggle world so thoroughly, she was sure that the only one who trumped her in patience was Jim Moriarty (and she was certain that mostly had to do with his special brand of insanity). But there was something about Azkaban that set her teeth on edge. She wanted to satisfy her curiosity – quickly, if possible – and it would not do for the subject of her interest to remain mute during the conversation.

She changed tactics. “Has your werewolf friend come to visit you since you killed Potter? Or has he abandoned you as well?” She hummed thoughtfully, choosing her words carefully. “Scorned lovers are often the worst at holding grudges.”

“ _Eight years_?”

There was finally movement inside the cell. A man approached the bars of the cell out the darkness, and Irene, even with her tight rein on her emotions, could barely manage to mute her surprise. She was not sure what she had expected, but the image of Sirius Black had been so engraved onto her memory that this… _ghost_ in front of her was almost horrifying. Black’s aristocratic features which had made him the subject of many girlish fantasies amongst Irene’s former peers had wasted away so completely that he looked barely more than a skeleton - pale skin was stretched against bone, cheeks were hallowed out, pale eyes were sunken in shadowed pits. In her memory, from those days at Hogwarts, Black had been surrounded by an almost enviable energy; now, everything about him had been corroded away by the years in a near-literal hell until he was only a shadow of his former self.

And his eyes…

Irene’s jaw clenched as Black walked closer to her, almost as silent as the Dementor that floated just behind her. There was a feverish look in his eyes that wasn’t completely unlike Moriarty’s. But Moriarty’s madness she understood, had understood it since they were both First Years. Hatred glittered in Black’s eyes where controlled chaos ruled in Moriarty’s and she remembered a clipping from the Daily Prophet, eight years ago today, saying how he had been laughing maniacally when they found him on a blood-soaked street the night James and Lily Potter had been killed.

But Irene knew that was not all there was the story.

“Time surely flies in such an exciting place,” she said, smiling. Black’s eyes were focused on her, narrowed not in recognition but… confusion? Her smile became a little more fixed as she realized that either Black had become a rather good actor during his time in Azkaban… or he had well and truly forgotten her. Teasing derision entered in her voice now. “Come now, Sirius. Have you honestly forgotten me?”

He stared at her for a long, unblinking moment.

And then his lips split in a terrifying, jack-o’-lantern grin and the manic light in his eyes grew brighter. He let out a dry choking laugh that held not even the smallest traces of humor in it - it sounded as if he hadn’t dared so much as _smile_ within the past eight years. Irene grimaced despite herself but refused to step away from the cell; there was no fear within her, only that deep-set curiosity and a slowly growing knot of irritation.

“I take it you remember me.”

He stopped mid-laugh and turned his suddenly intense gaze towards her. “Miss Adler. Miss Irene Adler. It’s been far too long. Eight years, did you say?” Something akin to pain spasmed across his face but it soon vanished back into the amused hysteria. “Tell me - humour me - have you come to gloat? To see the murderer himself? What took you so long, eh, Miss Adler? Don’t tell me you were scared of something as ridiculous as a Dementor.”

His words, while coherent, spewed out of him as if he couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. Irene studied him, lowering her lids in a show of superior boredom. The gray rags of his robe barely conceal the spindly frame and the translucent paleness of his skin. The casually elegant lines of youth are gone, beaten into a twisted and hunched form by despair, neglect, and malnutrition. It was almost laughably sad, the changes in him.

But Irene noticed things that many others would not have. The twisting lines of a lunar tattoo near his wrist. The stalking predator-like gait when he had walked towards the edge of his cell. His complete disregard of the Dementor hovering behind Irene. The way he followed her assessment with his eyes, madness having not quite destroyed the natural intellect he had been known for. Those small details told her things that she needed to know: Sirius Black was still cunning, still _comprehensive_ , and was still extraordinarily dangerous.

She smiled at him as if this was nothing more than a chance reunion between old friends, but she knew it was nothing of the sort and she knew _he_ knew. “Look at the poor dear. This place has not been kind to you at all, Sirius. I remember when the younger girls would throw themselves at you in the halls, but you never minded them, did you?” The smile grows sharper, more wicked. “It was the wolf who was always in your heart.”

Irene watched as his face twisted into an apparition of disgusted fury. “You waited eight years for _that_ , Miss Adler? Has the world become so _dull_ in the years since my old friend died that you've taken to taunting criminals in Azkaban?” The storm, as suddenly it appeared from his face, abated and he bowed his head, a chuckle echoing in the dark. “How the mighty have fallen.”

 _Have there been truer words?_ Irene clucked her tongue. “You’re hardly in a position to speak, dear. But…” She trailed, looking at him as if he were a particularly interesting specimen. “Considering I have no reason to believe you committed the crime you were imprisoned for, perhaps it is not entirely true in your case.”

“Oh, is _that_ what you think?” He snickered, turning away from her. “Well, I suppose I can finally rest easily now that _Irene Adler_ believes me innocent.”

“I have thought about that night,” Irene replied casually, watching him as carefully as any of her clients. “Oh, it was all over the papers. Quite a tragedy, you see. The Potters killed by the Dark Lord, the brave Peter Pettigrew making his final stand against the maddened criminal Sirius Black, all of those poor stupid Muggles cut down where they stood… it was quite a spectacle. A true flair for the dramatic, just as you’ve always had.”

She spun her web - she only needed a few more strands of truth from him to finish it.

“But we both know you’ve done none of those things.”

Black was no longer laughing. She watched as his eyes narrowed, turning silver in the bare light that glowed outside of his cell. But he didn’t say a word. His hands clenched and then unclenched at this side, but he was watching her as closely as she was watching him. Despite the mask of insanity that he wore, Irene knew that his mind was still as sharp as it had been eight years ago.

Whatever the Dementors usual _modus operandi_ , it had not worked on Black and she was still not sure whether to respect that fact or become annoyed by the sheer bullheadedness of it.

When he finally spoke, his voice was deathly quiet. “How would you know that, Miss Adler? Were you standing on the street when I killed them? Did you see it with your own eyes?”

“No,” she consented, treading carefully now. She walked slowly back into his line of sight, her heels clicking on the stone beneath her feet. She felt a slight breeze behind her as the Dementor mimicked her movements, watching them both beneath the cowl of its gray hood and letting out a breath that sounded not unlike wind whistling through the rafters of an abandoned house. Holding back a shiver, she met Black’s eyes again. “But your story - whatever it may be - is not the true one.”

“I’m sure you’ll make a fine Minister one day with that line of reasoning.” The smile was slowly returning, as if he was humoring her. Irene did not return it. “Do you really want to know, Miss Adler? Do you want to know the truth about what happened that night eight years ago? Come now, do ask. I know you’re dying to know. I’m a puzzle where none of the pieces fit, and we can’t have that now, can we?”

He leaned forward, wrapping long white fingers around the bars of the cell. The Dementor behind Irene hissed a warning, but Black paid no attention to it. There are silver flames in his eyes, and the smile on his face became mocking. Irene’s jaw clenched, but she did not take a step backwards - Sirius Black had never intimidated her, not back during their schooldays and certainly not now.

“Afraid to admit that I’m right, Mr. Black?” She lifted her chin, playing the words as daggers against his heart - she could aim and she could strike true. “Afraid that I of all people would believe you when even your precious Remus would not? You see, dear, as much as I am loathe to admit it, we are of like minds.” She noticed the grip on the bars becomes tighter, but she continued as if she hadn’t. “Oh, don’t pretend it isn’t true. I remember that terrible trick you played on Severus Snape - nearly killed him, as I can remember. Your friend James had to save him and wasn’t that a story to hear? I knew of it long before that night, Sirius - people always believed you would simply fall prey to the madness that was in your blood. Perhaps you couldn’t help yourself, they whispered. Oh, Sirius, how they _whispered_ about you.”

She was only somewhat surprised to hear the deep growl coming from somewhere within the cell and it took her a moment to realize that the sound was coming from Black himself. His eyes were fixed on her now, and there was something innately wolfish about his expression. She tutted at him.

“Oh, do I have your attention now?” Ignoring the impossible chill of the Dementor behind her, she leaned forward with a conspiratorial whisper, “Now Sirius, it would be poor form to insult me just for wanting to get to the bottom of the matter. It is something, after all, no one has attempted to do in eight very long years.” She straightened, satisfied by the slowly dawning comprehension in Black’s eyes, and absently fiddled with her gloves.

When he finally replied, his voice was more faint than it had been before, as if he were speaking to himself.

“Eight years. Has it truly been eight years…?” The gaze he fixed on her now was shuttered, completely blank, and Irene pressed back a sigh of annoyance. But her next words died on her lips when he said, “Nine. That’s the age. He’d be nine.”

She gave him an incredulous look. “I’m sorry?”

“I wonder…oh, but the Dementors would love that, wouldn’t they?” She can hear the false insanity beginning to sneak back into his voice, creeping ever slow slightly into his words and pulling him once again back into the darkness. When he looked back at her, she saw the feverish look of obsession barely suppressed by a clarity that actually surprised her. “But what can a child do? A child with an impossible set of lungs and a disgust for apple juice and his mother’s eyes and his father’s ridiculously untamable hair?” He shook his head, laughing. “No, Miss Adler - you have it all wrong. You think me innocent, but I am anything but.”

“Are we honestly playing this game again?”

“There’s no _game_ here, Irene.” His voice was a sharp whip against the lurking shadows of the hall and his cell and the breathy whispers of the Dementor who leaned in close, nearly shuddering from the pain or pleasure of Black’s sudden rage. “It was never a bloody game, but you and the others never saw that. But you know? You weren’t there that night, so yes. Yes, I killed them. All of them. James and Lily. All of those stupid Muggles. And it is so funny, now that you think of it. Oh, he should have suspected me! He had every right to suspect me!”

His laughter now bounced off the stone walls of the cell and there was such a chilling, unhinged desperation to it that at last Irene found herself taking a step back. Black caught the movement and his eyes gleamed with loathing that Irene knew was directed more at himself than at her.

“Come closer, Miss Adler. You spin stories and truths and lies - that will never change about you. Don’t you want to hear the best story of all? It has a spectacular twist at the end, I can assure you.”

“You’re mad.” Irene turned away from him, nearly brushing against the Dementor as she did so. The creature had no hold on her, and neither did Black - no more than he had a hold on his sanity, as much as she would have preferred to believe otherwise. “I hope you enjoy telling yourself the story, Mr. Black. It seems as if you’ve already convinced yourself of its truth.”

“Perhaps you were right, Miss Adler.”

She stopped, half-turning her head back to where she can dimly make out his emaciated form in the cell.

“Our lives are both made of lies. Perhaps we are _far_ more similar than even you think.”

Even in the darkness that she left behind, she can see the glint of a smile, a ghost of its former rakishness, and the words sit in the back of her mind like a leaden weight. There was no guilt there, no sympathy - only cold hard facts. And still, even with her skill and her charm, she could not untangle the pieces that made of the guilt and fury of Sirius Black’s despair.

It seemed as if a visit of another kind was in order.

Never turning to look behind her, Irene Adler left Azkaban and the shredded ghostly pieces of the past and the deranged laughter of a broken man behind her.


End file.
